MUSI 1310

Ignore the other reviews. I took this class thinking it was an easy A but it was HARD. If you miss a single lecture you will be way too far behind to even catch up, and you have to be paying attention the whole lecture. This class has been my worst grade at UVA- lol. So don't take it to just get an easy art credit out of the way. I took band for 7 years and a music composition seminar in high school where I had so much experience with music, and still did awful in this class. Professor Rous is super nice though.

Professor Rous is chill, nice, and very good at teaching. He gives very reasonable assignments, and is willing to help if you need it. Only thing about Professor Rous was that he would forget things sometimes. I asked him to change collab so that you can submit more than once, and he said he would, but he ended up never doing so. And he would forget to print the assignments sometimes, but they were on collab so it wasn't bad. The midterms are pretty much the same level as the assignments, and if you do the readings and attend lecture you would be fine. They were open notes for us too. But don't go with notes without studying, it will be hard.

But as someone who had experience in music, don't take this class if you think you know enough about music to just not do the readings and not show up to lecture and get an A. I have been learning music for many years, and I had to study to do well on the midterms and assignments. All the materials are there to help you succeed, but unless you have invested quite a lot of time into music theory before, you will need to show up to class or read. Example question, can you name the type of 7th chord that you are looking at? Or do you know whether a chord progression is authentic or deceptive?

Fairly easy class. 7 homework assignments, 3 quizzes, and a final exam. Homework assignments are easy if you keep up with the reading and go to class. Make sure you know your stuff for the quizzes or else you'll feel pressured by time. The third quiz and the final exam are open note. At the end of the semester, you'll be surprised at how much you actually learned. Professor Rous is a little quirky in the best sense of that word. Compared to other teachers, he's a breath of fresh air. The only thing I didn't like about the class is that Professor Rous never stops for student questions or to ask if everything made sense. You kind of have to interrupt him if you have a question or need something repeated.

Professor Rous is an extremely nice professor who offers as much help as possible. I had a few years of band in middle/high school that made this fairly easy for me, but I think without that background it could be difficult. Reading is like five pages before class each day. If you read before class and study a little bit, quizzes and assignments will be very easy. Listening can be pretty difficult but becomes easy with a few hours of practice. Assignments are all pretty easy and graded softly. On the last assignment on harmonization, Rous basically told me I did everything wrong and still gave me a 94. Rous often goes off track into things you don't need to know for the test which can be distracting, and he also doesn't do the best job of explaining things, but the book is very helpful. Overall, 100% recommend if you have even have a little bit of a music background (simply knowing where notes are on a staff), but if not you will only have to put in an extra hour or two each week to get an A.